July 13th, 2010
All right, it’s officially on. I just dropped my first Hubris query letter into the mailbox. Technically I still have a few revisions to do (a friend of mine recently delivered a full critique that’s been very helpful), but I probably have a good month before I hear back from this agent, so now I can keep up the rewrites with an added incentive to stay on schedule.
Much like when I started writing the book, this doesn’t feel all that momentous. It’s just another query, number 62 or something like that. The only difference is that it’s a new book I’m hawking this time. Well, that’s not entirely true; I do feel all the optimism I felt when I was first sending out queries for The Northerners, because Hubris has yet to feel the sting of rejection. It’s nice to have a clean slate, and I’m actually feeling really confident about this one, but I’m definitely not done with disappointment yet. I’m trying to be a professional writer, after all. Disappointment will be my lifelong courtesan.
That sounds like a more morbid thought than it actually is. I’m just being realistic. If I didn’t think writing was worth all the rejections and letdowns, I wouldn’t be doing it. In a good story, characters don’t earn their highs until they endure some brutal lows. Sometimes real life is just the same.
June 15th, 2010
I’m re-reading the Harry Potter series from start to finish in the name of over-analysis. Spoilers ahoy.
The Sorting Hat
Harry and the rest of the first years enter Hogwarts for the first time. In front of the whole school, each of them gets placed into one of Hogwart’s four houses by the magical, talking Sorting Hat. Harry is relieved to be placed in Gryffindor, after worrying that he might end up in Slytherin, Voldemort’s old house. The first years join their new houses for a sumptuous meal. During the meal Harry catches sight of a mean-looking professor and finds that his scar starts burning ominously as soon as the professor looks at him. After dessert, he and the rest of the Gryffindor students make their way to their dormitory tower. Harry falls into an exhausted sleep, and has a darkly portentous dream.
More…
June 9th, 2010
I’m re-reading the Harry Potter series from start to finish in the name of over-analysis. Spoilers ahoy.
The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters
Harry rides out the remainder of the summer with nervous expectation. On September first, the Dursleys drop him off at King’s Cross station in London. A friendly red-headed family, the Weasleys, help Harry find his way through a magical entrance to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, where he boards the Hogwarts Express. On the way to the school Harry meets Ron Weasley, the youngest brother in a large family of wizards who already feels overshadowed by his siblings; Hermione Granger, a brainy Muggle-born girl who talks at great length; Neville Longbottom, an awkward boy who’s always losing things; and he is reintroduced to Draco Malfoy, the upper-crust bully he met at Diagon Alley earlier. Other side characters make their first appearances. After enjoying some wizard candy for the first time, Harry disembarks and follows the rest of the first-years across a still lake to the massive castle of Hogwarts.
More…
April 28th, 2010
Yesterday I did it, months before I thought I would: I actually wrote a query letter pitch for Hubris.
Charlie just wanted to reconnect with his adopted sister, Adriana. Adriana just wanted to avenge her birth mother by killing the six Gods and ending their tyrannical reign over the universe. But then things got complicated. Charlie has met the Gods, and though they’re rattled and threatened, they don’t seem much like tyrants. What’s more, they claim that if Adriana succeeds in killing all of them, she’ll wipe out the universe in the process. Adriana thinks they’re bluffing; the godishes, impish immortal beings that are not quite gods but not quite anything else, are in her corner. But even Adriana is starting to suspect that she’s being manipulated.
As Charlie races from New York to the Tian Shan mountains to the bowels of the earth to stop her, Adriana must face the anger that drives her, and decide whether she’s willing to risk everything-literally-to finish what she’s started.
And already I’m finding faults in it. This, folks, is my least favorite kind of writing. I’d rather churn out a dissertation on minor property disputes in 1890s Oklahoma than try to distill a 90,000 word story into a couple of paragraphs. Or less. While maintaining a strong sense of the characters, setting, tone, and emotional stakes. And making it sound irresistible. Which, considering my rejections outnumber my partial requests by about 30 to 1, I’m really not very good at.
But an author’s gotta what an author’s gotta do. Writing a good query is a skill every writer needs, and the only way to get better is with lots of painful, demoralizing practice. I’m glad I got a head start on this one, at least.
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I'm an author, artist, animator, and a-game a-designer, depending on what day it is. These, dear Internet, are my ramblings.
Visit my home page at QuinnStephens.com.
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